Hex is a two-player game, developed in 1942 by Piet Hein at Niels Bohr's
Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen.

The game is played on a diamond-shaped board made up of hexagons.

In 1948 John F. Nash, then a graduate student in mathematics at Princeton University, independently reinvented the game.

For Two Players

Click any of the 12 Game Buttons below
to view and play one of the 12 different Hex Games:

RULES OF PLAY: The number of hexagons may vary, but the standard board has 11 on each edge. Two opposite borders of the diamond are blue and the other two are red. The hexagons at the corners of the diamond belong to either side. The players alternately place one of their pieces, also referred to as "stones", on any one of the hexagons, provided that the cell is not already occupied by another piece.

The objective of "blue" is to complete an unbroken chain of pieces of one color, from one edge to the opposite edge. "Red" attempts to complete a similar chain of red pieces between the other two edges. The chain may twist and turn. The players continue placing their pieces until one of them has made a complete chain. The game cannot end in a draw. The rules are simple, yet Hex is a game of surprising mathematical subtlety.

Swap Rule The two players may agree to adopt the Swap Rule, which means that after the first stone has been placed, the second player may switch sides if he wishes. This is to remove the advantage one has playing first. Another option is to adopt the pie rule, by which the second player has the option of swapping colors after the first player makes the first three moves.

Drag & Drop Moveable Pieces

Drag & Drop Moveable Pieces

The "stones" (the round blue and red game pieces) created
for this web site, multiply.
As you drag one off the top of the "stack", another
is created and ready for play.
Try it on the example at the bottom of this page.

Note that some browsers limit the number of pieces
that may be created. The number is usually over
200 (100 per color).